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CSP plants

On 28 July, the US Department of Energy (DOE) awarded grants to six research projects which aim to reduce the costs of concentrating solar collectors. The initiative is called COLLECTS, which is short for Concentrating Optics for Lower Levelized Energy Costs, and focuses on the most expensive component of a CSP plant: the collectors / the reflector. One of the beneficiaries of the COLLECTS budget of nearly USD 9 million is California-based, early-stage technology provider Sunvapor, which is planning to supply the industry with solar steam solutions more cost-effective than natural gas-based steam boilers. COLLECT is part of the DOE’s SunShot initiative started in 2011.

There is enormous demand for industrial heat in the temperature range between 100 and 250 °C all around the world, and solar thermal technologies are said to play an important role in covering this demand over the next decades. A joint project by magazine Sun & Wind Energy and German agency solrico was to find out which companies offer solar process heat collectors, what technology they focus on and how many commercial projects they have already realised. The results of the global survey now make up the first World Map of the Solar Process Heat Collector Industry, which was published in the March edition of Sun & Wind Energy and is also available for download on solrico´s website.